It premiered at 78th Street Theater Lab,[1] followed by performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at the Off-Broadway Arclight Theatre in New York City, where it ran from January 11 to February 5, 2002.
[4] For her play about a pre-Civil War Shaker community in which several young women claim to see celestial visions, she did three years of research.
Two days prior, the September 11 attacks occurred, and on that night, the cast members responded by rehearsing the Shaker hymns performed in the play.
Calling Hutton "one of the most richly humane voices in contemporary theater,"[8] F. Kathleen Foley of Los Angeles Times described As It Is in Heaven as “amusing, intellectually stimulating and moving – a beautifully crafted piece that will endure.”[4][8] The critic of The Village Voice, Alexis Soloski, noted that "the scenes of the women working and living together are wonderful for their very Shaker-like qualities: simplicity, unpretentiousness, attention to detail," although Soloski claims that the playwright "weaves in a dramatic arc that never seems as finely worked as the rest of the play.
[7] American Theatre Web said that "Hutton... once again looks into a slice of Americana... while showing that even a 'utopian' existence such as the Shakers' was not without complications... Hutton asks some universal questions about the nature of community and belief that are timeless and also prove to be good fodder for storytelling on stage... As It Is in Heaven contains a story that deserves to be told.